The Technological Relevance of Natural Language Pragmatics and Speech Act Theory Michael A. Covington Associate Director Artificial Intelligence Center.

The Technological Relevanceof Natural Language

Pragmatics andSpeech Act Theory

Michael A. Covington

Associate DirectorArtificial Intelligence Center

Outline

• What is pragmatics?

• What is speech act theory?

• How is this relevant to technology?

Outline




What is pragmatics?

It’s the study of

how language is used

in specific situations

to communicate.

What is pragmatics?

Pragmatics is the newest

major area of linguistics,

first widely studied in the 1970s.

Applications are still

being discovered.

What is pragmatics?

Charles Morris, 1938:

Syntax

Relation of linguistic units to:

Each other

What is pragmatics?


Syntax

Semantics


Each other

The things they signify

What is pragmatics?


Syntax

Semantics

Pragmatics


Each other

The things they signify

The people who use them

What is pragmatics?

Important areas of pragmatics today:

• Discourse structure

• Language in context

• Speech act theory

Outline




What is speech act theory?

The study of

what we do when we talk:

stating facts,

asking questions,

making requests,

expressing feelings…


Terms from J. L. Austin,

How to do things with words, 1962:

locution what we say





illocution what we intend to

accomplish by saying it





illocution what we intend to


perlocution what we actually



Key fact:

Locution, illocution, and perlocution

can be mismatched.

You do not have to swallow

what people tell you.

What is speech act theory?John Searle, Speech Acts, 1969:

There are many kinds of illocutions:

• Statements

• Questions

• Requests

• Promises

• … (Some linguists classify > 200 kinds!)


Key claim of speech act theory:

The F(P) hypothesis

We do not simply communicate facts.

Everything we say is wrapped in an illocution.

Every P is wrapped in an F(…).


Putting it another way:

We do not perform “Vulcan mind melds.”

We do not simply put information

into each other’s minds.


No “Vulcan mind melds”…

We must package everything we say

in a speech act.

The hearer must figure out how to take it

(and is not obligated to take it the way we wanted him to).


The logic of how to interpret speech acts

is called illocutionary logic

(Vanderveken 1991, etc.).

Outline




Relevant to technology?

Have you noticed how oftencomputers are content toperform “Vulcan mind melds”?

They just transfer data without decoding speech acts.

(Hello, spam and viruses!)


But in factthe world of computersis full of speech acts.

All we have to dois look for them.


Examples:

• Windows message boxes

• Network protocols

• E-commerce

• Operating system calls


Examples:



• E-commerce


Windows message boxes

Direct speech act: Statement of fact and request for acknowledgment.

User must infer: Go and pick up the printout.


Direct speech act: Yes/no question.

User must figure out what the answer should be.User must answer truthfully.


Direct speech act: Statement of fact. Cryptic request for reply.

User must infer: what on earth this means!


Examples:



• E-commerce


Network protocolsExample: Delivering e-mail.

(establish connection)220 wumpus.ai.uga.edu ESMTP Sendmail 8.8.8/8.8.8


(establish connection)220 wumpus.ai.uga.edu ESMTP Sendmail 8.8.8/8.8.8EHLO possum.ai.uga.edu250 wumpus.ai.uga.edu Hello possum.ai.uga.edu…

Statement,possibly

insincere


(establish connection)220 wumpus.ai.uga.edu ESMTP Sendmail 8.8.8/8.8.8EHLO possum.ai.uga.edu250 wumpus.ai.uga.edu Hello possum.ai.uga.edu…EXPN logicians250 Donald Nute <[email protected]>250 Don Potter <[email protected]>

Statement,possibly

insincere

Request


(establish connection)220 wumpus.ai.uga.edu ESMTP Sendmail 8.8.8/8.8.8EHLO possum.ai.uga.edu250 wumpus.ai.uga.edu Hello possum.ai.uga.edu…EXPN logicians250 Donald Nute <[email protected]>250 Don Potter <[email protected]>MAIL FROM: [email protected] RET=HDRS250 [email protected]: sender OK

Statement,possibly

insincere

Request

Statement with implicit request


(establish connection)220 wumpus.ai.uga.edu ESMTP Sendmail 8.8.8/8.8.8EHLO possum.ai.uga.edu250 wumpus.ai.uga.edu Hello possum.ai.uga.edu…EXPN logicians250 Donald Nute <[email protected]>250 Don Potter <[email protected]>MAIL FROM: [email protected] RET=HDRS250 [email protected]: sender OKRCPT TO: [email protected] NOTIFY=SUCCESS250 [email protected]: recipient OK

Statement,possibly

insincere

Request



(establish connection)220 wumpus.ai.uga.edu ESMTP Sendmail 8.8.8/8.8.8EHLO possum.ai.uga.edu250 wumpus.ai.uga.edu Hello possum.ai.uga.edu…EXPN logicians250 Donald Nute <[email protected]>250 Don Potter <[email protected]>MAIL FROM: [email protected] RET=HDRS250 [email protected]: sender OKRCPT TO: [email protected] NOTIFY=SUCCESS250 [email protected]: recipient OKDATA354 Enter mail, end with “.” on a line by itself…text of message here…250 Message accepted for delivery

Statement,possibly

insincere

Request



(establish connection)220 wumpus.ai.uga.edu ESMTP Sendmail 8.8.8/8.8.8EHLO possum.ai.uga.edu250 wumpus.ai.uga.edu Hello possum.ai.uga.edu…EXPN logicians250 Donald Nute <[email protected]>250 Don Potter <[email protected]>MAIL FROM: [email protected] RET=HDRS250 [email protected]: sender OKRCPT TO: [email protected] NOTIFY=SUCCESS250 [email protected]: recipient OKDATA354 Enter mail, end with “.” on a line by itself…text of message here…250 Message accepted for deliveryQUIT221 wumpus.ai.uga.edu closing connection

Statement,possibly

insincere

Request


Request to end conversation

Network protocols

Note the variety of speech acts involved in network communication,

and the possibility of insincerity.

(A smart hearer has to judge what he hears.)

Many computer security problemscould be attributed toa naïve view of speech acts.


Examples:



• E-commerce


E-commerce

By electronic commerceI mean the automatic makingof business deals by computer.

Computers negotiate with each other, find the best deal and make it automatically, and even act as brokers or referrers for each other.

E-commerce

E-commerce in this sense hasexisted since the 1960s,often with clumsy protocols.

Examples:ANSI X.12UN EDIFACT

Even if clumsy, they are a boon tocountries that do not speak a majorworld language.

E-commerce

Older E-commerce protocolsdo not take speech acts into account.

X.12 has a different “form” forevery type of transaction(over 800 of them),each with its own syntax.

E-commerce

KQML

(Knowledge Query Manipulation Language)(T. Finin et al., mid-1990s)

is a speech-act-basedlanguage for electronic commerce.

(XML is not. XML is merely a syntax for data.)

E-commerce

Some KQML speech-act types:

Informatives: tell, deny, untell (retract)Database performatives: insert, delete, delete-one, delete-allQuery performatives: ask-if, ask-about, ask-one, ask-all…Responses: error (I can’t understand you), sorry (can’t do it), eos (end of stream)

E-commerce

In conversations about databases,another prominent issue ishow to deal with multiple answers.

Deliver them all at once in a list,or as a series of individual statements,or one at a time as requested…

These options turn up in several placesin KQML.


Examples:



• E-commerce


Operating system calls

Even a computer program

talking to the OS

has a repertoire of

speech act types.


Moore (Decision Support Systems,

1998) found a variety of speech

act types in AppleEvents

(MacOS).


In any modern operating system, system calls can:

• State facts to the OS

• Ask questions of the OS

• Give commands to the OS

• Make requests of the OS (which the OS can turn

down)

• Make promises to the OS (by providing a callback

method)

Typically the programming language takes little or no

notice of the difference between these.


So what should we do next?


So what should we do next?

What I’ve just given you is

not a state-of-the-art report

but rather an indication of

where to explore.


Anything that involves

communication

and intelligent agents

is going to involve

pragmatics.

Look for it!

Some references(where more references can be found)

Levinson, S., Pragmatics (Cambridge U. Press, 1983)

Mey, J., Pragmatics: An Introduction (Blackwell, 2001)

Searle, J. R., Speech Acts (Cambridge U. Press, 1969)

Covington, M. A., “Speech acts, electronic commerce, and KQML,” Decision Support Systems 22 (1998) 203-211

Finin, T., et al., http://www.cs.umbc.edu/kqml/

Moore, S., “Categorizing automated messages,” Decision Support Systems 22 (1998) 213-241

Any questions?

The Technological Relevance of Natural Language Pragmatics and Speech Act Theory Michael A. Covington Associate Director Artificial Intelligence Center.

Documents

speech act theory michael

speech acts

key claim of speech

important areas of pragmatics

charles morris

vulcan mind melds

discourse structure

statements questions